February 18, 2023 • 47 mins
Mike Lahiff is a former Seal Team 4 operator and the Co-Founder and CEO of ZeroEyes, the only AI-based gun detection video analytics platform with US Department of Homeland Security SAFETY Act Designation. He shares how he was not the best student as he dropped out to enlist, but that becoming a SEAL was the realization of his childhood dream.
Mike talks about his deployments to Afghanistan and how his FoB was the most attacked FoB in country. He also recounts one time when the NATO forces he was working with ignored intel and ended up getting ambushed. Post-SEALs, Mike started ZeroEyes to monitor guns in the open rather than recognize faces and make the best use of cameras that are already in place to get people to safety.
Find out more about Mike and ZeroEyes in the link below:
Website: https://zeroeyes.com/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
A beautiful If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough.
You're listening to Soft Red Radio Special Operations, military news
and straight talk with the guys in the community. Hey,
(00:35):
what's up. Welcome back to another episode of Soft Rep Radio.
Those that you are watching already see that I have
my guest on and it is Mike laithe Seal team
for operator United States Navy drifter in life. I like
to see those bumper stickers out there on the road
that say not all who wander our loss. Mike, Welcome
to the show, Arad. I appreciate it. It's awesome to
(00:57):
be on here. Yeah, it's we're happy to have you know.
Brandon's like, YO, dial them up, let's get him, and
I was like, let's get it. And what we're gonna
talk about is, really, what was it that drove you
to join the seals? You know, how old were you
and was it like a high school? Like, tell me
a little bit about what took you from boom. It's
(01:17):
kind of a funny story, so, I mean, everyone's story
that gets to the seal teams or any special operations
unit's pretty unique. But when I asked to go back
to when I was in grade school. So I was
in fifth grade, I got in trouble for whatever reason,
I was always getting in trouble. I got grounded and
I wasn't allowed to watch TV. I mean, this is
before iPads and all that ship so it's like all
I had was TV. So my mom was like, read
(01:38):
a book, and I was like, I don't want to
read a book, and she took me to It was
Barnes and Noble, and I walked in and I went
over to the military section, and right away there was
a there was a book there a guy all painting
up in camouflage, hiding in the jungle, and there's a
big gold trident on it. I had no idea what
Navy Seals were at the time, but I just let
the comfort looked cool as ship. So I was like,
it was about Vietnam for dogs, you know Frogman in Vietnam.
(02:02):
It was a lot of Seal Team one stories, if
I remember right. And I was hooked. And then like
within months the movie with Charlie Sheen came out in
Navy Seals, and I was like, I was like done,
I'm doing this. And so then in sixth grade in
my school district where I grew up. You graduated sixth
grade and went to middle school and they did like
a graduation ceremony. We had a yearbook and in the
(02:22):
yearbook it asked in twenty years, I will be dot
dot dot, and like every kid in my class wrote,
they're gonna be. I grew up in Philly, so everyone
was gonna be like playing for the Sixers, the Eagles,
the Phillies, and I wrote, I'm gonna be United States
Navy Seal working on top secret missions. And I totally
forgot that I did that. And when I graduated seal training,
one of my buddies, his mom was like, they were
(02:45):
moving and they cleaned out the house and she came
across the yearbook and she was like reading the stories
about all the kids we grew up with and she
was laughing and she was like, holy shit, Mike's actually
doing this. And they gave the yearbook to my dad,
who gave it to me at graduation and I was like, damn,
And I was like, that's pretty cool. Yeah, you're uplishing
you know, your youthful goals, bro subconsciously right, that book
just inspired you. Yeah. So it was like so high school,
(03:07):
I was kind of a lost cause just ended up.
I was total knucklehead, went to college and I wasn't
some I wasn't doing awesome. Let's let's just say I
was just worried, party and having a good time, trying
to figure out life. So on some wild oats and
then nine eleven happened, and like shortly after that, I
was just like, this is what I gotta do. And
uh about a year after nine eleven. It took me
(03:30):
a little while to get through the recruiting process because
I had some legal troubles growing up. But then I
I finally got into the Navy and uh went to
the Fleet for a little bit, then ended up at buds.
What was your need of the Navy at first? When
you before you got two buds, Like, you know, we
always hear about the romance of buds. What was it
that you did prior to that? So at the time this,
(03:50):
you know, it's going back to like two thousand to
two thousand three, the Navy, you could get a Seal
Challenge contract, but the seal Navy seals didn't have their
own rating, Like eventually they had their own rating or
called like special s o S Special Operators, But at
the time, you had to pick a specific rating in
the Navy to get a billet to buds, and so
I was like, what's the fastest thing to get me
(04:11):
to boot camp? And they're like, we have an opening
for parachute riggers, air crew survival equipment and so um.
They wouldn't give me a Seal challenge contract of course
to my police record. So I had to get a
waiver just to get into the regular Navy, got into
the regular Navy and then had to go to my
first command and try out to go through like a
regular fleet sail or applying the buds. Yeah, that's what
(04:32):
I did. That's awesome. I mean you just kept at it.
You just wanted to serve the country. You know. There
was a huge you know, rally around the campfire so
to speak, during nine eleven. I remember it very much,
and uh, you know, there was not so much divisiveness.
It was like you're either with us or against us.
You know, It's not like the melting pot that we
see today. And I have to say that, you know,
social media helps perpetuate a lot of the narrative out there,
(04:56):
and I just would like to see, you know, us
have that same mindse like what you wanted to do
for the heart of it all be in place right
now with kind of everyone in the world right like
to say, like, I don't know how to say it. Man,
I guess I just want peace in a redwood tree
with an a king. All right, let's just live there.
I mean, I don't get like social media just perpetuates
(05:17):
like the people that are on the fringes and they
get the loudest voice because the garners like the most attention.
But that's not like I think how you know of
America really wants to be like we get the two
and a half percent fringe on on each side, which
unfortunately just like dominates any kind of news and media,
and so people think everything is in a shiitter. But
(05:38):
I still believe in the American people on the American
dream and are red, white and blue. So that's what's
I'm the same. Yeah, I just hun and I'm glad
to hear that from you. Now, Um, you enlisted in
the military, which is um, did you go through your
college career or did you just enlist? You said, I
dropped out to enlist. My dad was a construction worker
(06:02):
doing water pipe stuff. My mom was a hairdresser. They
never went to college, so they were pretty excited for
me to like graduate college, and I was like going
in my senior year and I was like come out
and when they were like what, and I was like,
don't worry, I'll finish my degree on them in And
I did. I finished my degree on active duty all
nights and weekends. When I graduate, I sent the certificate
to my mom, make her all happy. And then uh,
(06:23):
that's now I unlisted. I like being an eed dog.
You get the best jobs. Stayment listed then the whole time,
even with your degree. Yeah. So I hit my tenure
mark and it was kind of like do I stay
in for another ten or do I get out? At
the time, I had three kids. I have four kids now,
and I was like, dude, I was never home. I
need to do something different. I saw the Wars winding down.
I didn't want to be stuck in like a training
(06:44):
cell all the time, and I was like do I
do I stay in and go office? Like I don't know.
I was going through a bunch of stuff. And then
I applied to business school. I never thought I would
get into a school like war in business school, and
I did, and it was in Philly where I grew up.
So I moved back to Philly with my family kind
of figure out life. Get a cheese steak with Whiz
from either one side of the street or the other
side of the street. Just it's neither of them and
(07:08):
still Sandro's, And oh, there we go. We're gonna put
that in the comments. Desandros, We're gonna put that in
the comments. Gino is saying, I think that's more like
a tourist. I don't get me wrong, They're good, right, No,
I get you. There's how many other good places in
Philly for cheese steaks. Oh, you gotta be stoked at
the Eagles are going to them? Yeah, a Super Bowl?
(07:28):
I mean, come on, right, Chiefs and the Eagles, Andy
Reid coming back. It's funny. It's like Andy Reid coming
back after he you know, he took the Eagles to
Super Bowl loss, but he's coming back. And then you've
got the Kelsey Brothers against you. There's just so many
cool tidbits with this Super Bowl. Well here in Utah,
those two bros are the two players from Grantsville High
(07:49):
School are going to be playing against each other in
the Super Bowl. So there's the two brothers, and then
there's Kelsey. I didn't realize from you if that's the
same two. Actually they both played at Grantsville High School
here just about twenty minutes west of where I'm at,
and now, like the news here is never Grantsville, but
(08:09):
now Grantsville is like, yeah, everybody Grantsville, you know. So
all right, so, you know, go for both of those athletes.
Good luck to both teams. It's a sports, a proper sport,
you know, and let's let's just listen to the refs
and let your coaches do the talking. Brothers too that
they run an awesome podcast. It might just be called
the Kelsey Broller Podcast or something. They're hilarious, they're good.
(08:31):
Oh yeah, we'll put that in that. We'll plug it. Dude.
That's great, and it's cool because it's you know, I'm
sure that when this goes up, I think the Super
Bowl is like the eighteen or nineteenth, isn't it. I
think of this month. I think it's next Sunday, so this, yeah,
so this will probably go up after So let's make
a prediction. All right. You're calling it for who oh
the Eagles? Yeah? By ten? Yeah, I think I'll say
(08:55):
eagles by a field goal. Okay. I think that's okay, spread,
so we're good it. Yeah, that's that's like a mail
by director laces out. Okay, so we'll go back to
this and listen to say Okay, let's go, let's go,
let's do it now. The thing you talked about was
the college that you got into work college after you
got out of the the sea or you applied, You're like,
(09:17):
what I'm gonna do ten more years and you're like, entrepreneur. Huh,
that's what's in your mind. You're just like, go after it.
You always gravitated towards the entrepreneur thing. I was always
doing crazy ship when I was a kid, like kids
in the neighborhood to help me figure out alcohol soul
and make money with like sid Like I made comic
books when I was in elementary school and we would
sell them in school. This is like when the Marvel
(09:38):
cards were getting real big, before Marvel is what it
is today. Side landscape and businesses, shovel and snow, all
that stuff. I got suspended from school because I used
to buy air heads at wholesale and then I would
sling them out of my backpack at school for like,
I get them for like a nickel of piece, and
I'd sell them for twenty five cents a piece. I
was making like a hundred bucks a week and change
getting to the bank in like seventh and eighte oh yeah,
(10:00):
And then I got suspended if we're doing it? And
I was like, wait, isn't what I'm learning more from
this than any fucking bullshit math class were giving me.
I mean, you're really selling air heads, dude, that's great.
I mean, not to steal that. But my dad had
vending machines in the school I went to because it
was attached to the armory, and he was a Green
Beret that his unit was attached to there. So there's
an army attached to the to the Junior High. And
(10:22):
he put a key around my neck and he's like,
anytime you see these vending machines turned off in the gym,
you just turn them right on, okay. So so I
would be the kid that everybody roll with. We go
over to the vending machines, just turn them right on
my dad's coke machine and they'd all just get cokes
right there. Yeah, hundred percent, dude, and hustling as well.
I used to sell grilled cheeses for a dollar or
(10:42):
or a hole for two because I didn't have a
job at thirteen. Who's gonna hire me? You know? So
I was everybody's selling lemonade, and I was like, I
got you something different than Cody. So I'm gonna sell
grilled cheese with Velvita bro And I sold him all
thirteen bucks. But I was like, what are you doing
selling all your diet cokes from the vending machine. He's like, oh,
it's good times, Bro. Like I just always had that
(11:04):
entrepreneurial bug. And then when I got out active duty
and I was at school, I was at you know,
I was at this fancy business school, and I was
just like I didn't even know what half the stuff was.
I was looking at like the difference between investment banking,
private equity, hedge funds, and I was just trying to
figure it out. The problem was going entrepreneurial at that
time is like I have kids. I needed support. And
when you're an entrepreneur and go to a startup, like
(11:26):
you're in a hurt locker for quite some time until
it starts becoming successful, if it becomes successful at all,
so I took jobs that paid for a bit, but
I was doing a side like I started off doing
a real state side hustle. I was about to start
off flipping properties, and then from there I rolled in
and getting like multifamily real estate investment so I could
get like monthly cash flow off the rents. And then
(11:49):
when we started zero wise and eighteen, I sold all
of that to dump it into the company so we
could get ourselves going. And then he had a course
to focus on now with zero eyes. And yeah, if
I read a little bit about like the docier that
came through on it was like right after the Parkland shootings,
you know, and of course other shootings. I'm sure you
know at the schools or at soft targets that we
(12:10):
all you know, frequent, whether it's the mall or the walmarts.
It kind of impacts you, like it impacts me, but
you're doing something about it. Yeah, tell me about that. Yeah, yes,
So me and another co found when we get around
and kick around business ideas all the time or like beers, coffee, whatever,
even on the phone text, and then the start of business,
you have to be solving a problem for someone, right,
(12:30):
and every time we turned on the news. I mean,
nothing's changed since Columbine. It's it's only gotten worse. But
this is going back to two thousand seventeen, and it
was like every time you turn on news, it was
another shooting, another shooting, another shooting. And then the Parkland
school shooting happened. And my daughter's school, my oldest daughter,
she was in middle school at the time that school.
(12:51):
Her school started doing a lockdown drills, also known as
active shooter drills, and she came home really upset, like
that we had to do this drill or they're gonna
shoot our school like these other schools. And I was like,
this is fucking nuts. Like and I knew some folks
that were doing facial recognition technology and that was always
in the back of my head and all the stuff
that was happening with AI and computer vision, just trying
(13:12):
to learn more about it. And then fast forward a
couple of days. I was just sitting in our school
waiting for an indoor lacrosse practice to be over, and
as I was sitting, I was just looking around as
a camera like every twenty feet in a school, and
he could do some quick math, you know, like there
has to be two cameras in this building and they
have security guards, security guards walking around there like, and
I was like, Hey, who's looking at the cameras and
(13:32):
he was like he like laughed, He was like, no,
one's looking at the cameras. We only look at them
after something happens. I was like, why don't we use
him instead of like doing facial recognition where everyone has
all these privacy concerns, why don't we just focus on
detecting a gun. If someone has a gun out in
the open, like particularly out of school, I think everyone
wants to know. So now we could give that information
of like what that person looks like, what type of
weapon are carrying, how many shooters are and GEO locate
(13:55):
them on a map for first responders and local staff
and securities, so they could get people to safety as
fast as possible, but also decrease the response time and
stop the threat, stop the bleeding, you know, save time,
save lives. And had that I called up my my buddies,
my co founders, and I was like, yeah, I got
this idea. And I was like, you guys in we
all quit our jobs and moved into my couple of
(14:17):
them moved into my basement, living on Hammocks for a
couple of months and we sell funded the business to
go for like the first year, I was just trying
to figure it out. And here we are five years
later and we have almost thirty employees, were in thirty
five states, growing in schools, commercial places, and military installations. Yeah,
they're finding it a need to say, hey, if this
(14:38):
does happen here, it's not to stop the situation. It's
too zero in on my pencil. If you will freeze
frame it freeze frame meat holding said pencils, send that immediately,
Like this is what we're looking for, this this situation,
and it's going to alert the authorities and those that
need to know that this is happening and so they
can respond before anybody can even get to the phone. Yeah,
(14:59):
it's just real time actionable intelligence in a perfect world,
like we detect that weapon, shots or even far and
we can stop it before anyone gets hurt. And it's
like that's to win everyone wants. I mean, you're coming
up with something though, there's it's better than you know,
sending my kid with I mean, I'm not trying to
dog it, but like a kevil Ark backpack, you know,
I'm not trying to say if you said your kid
with the kevil Aar backpack to school, there's I'm just saying, like,
(15:21):
we just that's that's great. Yeah. All the security cameras
are already there, so like, why don't we make them
active to detect the gun? Like everywhere you go to
security camera were monitored walking down the streets. Yeah, trying
to give away my medical information, hippa. Yeah, let's go on,
(15:43):
hippo hippa. Come on, man, if you tell me it's
not hippa, it's you, come on. I'm sorry. I just
you know, I just want to this facial recognition man,
it is everywhere I was in London, you know, and
they say when you're walking through London for ten minutes,
you're like filmed times. It was the most most video
in the world. Yeah, I just walk. I'm just like
(16:04):
I feel safe in London. I'm like la la la,
because I just feel like, do you like what you see?
Are you enjoying your show? You know? That's really that's
like Truman, here we are, you know, and when you
referenced AI, it's an acronym that we're using more and more.
That's artificial intelligence. And that's where we're getting these types
of facial recognition platforms or gun recognition platforms. That's pretty
(16:28):
cool now it's it's can it only be pulled out
so you have to actually pull out the device to
be scanned, or can it be like can you see yea,
so we we we don't do concealed weapons. It could
be partially so it's all based on off the camera feed.
It could be partially concealed, but then like multiple variables
come to play like lighting distance, etcetera, so that the
(16:49):
simplest way we tell people is like if a human
is sitting down looking at that video feed and they
could tell like, hey, that's a gun. Are zero eyes
platform will also detected it took gun. I see. Yeah,
that's amazing because it's just gonna get more refined, you know.
We're yeah, it's crazy how much it improves. It's like
(17:10):
a snake eating its own tail, like the feedback loop
of it improving. But the really interesting thing about it
is like the detections, Like we see detections that are
so far away we're like holy shit, or like weird
lighting conditions, and it's like it just works really well
and you can get that information to people as soon
as possible with your testing you've been doing with range
(17:31):
and whatnot, sure, and just trying to see what you
can pick up, how it can pick up with that algorithm.
I'm sure you guys keep that close to your chest
that no one can you know, Yeah, go after that.
Like all the data we use for it. We sure
in house. All of our developers are in house. Um yeah,
it's it's our coke recipe. And you have a knack
for looking for veterans that are qualified to come and
(17:53):
work with you if they apply themselves. Is that right now? Yeah,
we love higher and vets. It's um. So. Out of
the hundred and thirty employees that we have, roughly probably
about seventy five might even be like our veterans a branch. Actually,
we don't have anyone from Space Force. We did get
our first coast. We have a lot of Marines. You
(18:14):
have Coast Guard. You got Coast Guard, you got a
count coast guards. They listened to I don't care Department
of Department of Homeland Security. Man the negative who's going
to fight for America on the shores first his coast,
the coast. Yeah, Yeah, we got people from all brands.
I mean, we love hiring vets, right, it's like that. Yeah,
(18:34):
you know, they're trainable. They got all those soft skills
that are really important teamwork, communication skills. They could be
a leader, they could be a follower. They'll grind it out,
they'll figure it out. But being trainable it's like the
most important aspect of that because they could come in
and know anything about computer vision AI, how its sales,
(18:55):
any of that stuff, like, and we just we just
train them on it and we show up, just go up. Well,
we'll get you up to speed pretty quickly. I tell
my staff every day, thank you for coming to work. Yes,
and they look at me like, wow, why you're here?
Don never only get one thing done today? It's at
least at least you're moving in the right direction exactly
you came to work. He's committed to coming to work
(19:17):
and uh, that's awesome. So do you find that using
your seal background has helped you and your military background
in this endeavor? You know, yeah, it definitely does. It
really helped because because we're working in a security space,
we're we're dealing with in our process with our clients
or potentially going to be our clients. In our sales process,
we're always dealing with like security director, security minded folks,
(19:38):
and it really helps coming from like a military and
then we have law enforcement backgrounds on our team too.
We could speak the language outside of like the I
T tech realm. We could speak the language of like
what to do about certain threats and timing and movement
and how it can help and what's the really at
the end of the day, if you're paying for this,
what's the what's the value they were getting out of it?
(20:00):
And we could easily show it. But once people have
like zero eyes on our platform and we see it
over and over and over again with with clients, what
they do is like they'll go put on like a
small subset of their cameras and then they have the
local police run drills with their security team, like an
active shooter drill, etcetera. And they do it without the
software running, and they do it with the software running
(20:20):
because they want to test that. They want to like
punch holes in it and they want to kick the tires,
and we're like, yeah, go for it. Do it everyone.
After they use it and they get the alerts and stuff,
they're just like, damn this needs to be on every camera.
This is so helpful because if you think about it, now,
an active shooter event happens, the way the police are
responding is from a nine one one call. So shots
are fired at whatever building or whatever location. Everyone starts scattering,
(20:44):
some people run, some people don't. They have tunnel vision,
their hearts rights through the roof, they're sweating, they're scared,
they're locking up. And then within a minute of that shooting,
you're finally getting some NIE on one calls and a
person is like, hey, there's there's a there's a shooter here,
and they're where are you And they're like they just
named a building or the campus, like oh, I'm at
such and such school or such and such mall or whatever,
(21:07):
such and such military base. Okay where and it could
be like a hundred acre campus and they like, we'd
dialing them into to the X to exactly where they
need to go, not only that from one oh three,
yeah right, And so once the police or first responders
like use our sister, like damn, this is a game changer,
and I'm like, yeah, it's gonna it's gonna help. Now.
(21:27):
Is it like the cure all to this? No? Absolutely not.
But it's like it's something moving us in a right
there action to make a difference. Well, I completely agree
with that, you know, and if it can help, you know,
to just extinguish the situation. You know, no one wants
it to be a loss of life, right, but still
lock up your guns at home, parents, Yes, yes, put
(21:48):
a lock on it. Yes, let's start there, Okay, because
that's an accessible situation, right, let's just be aware of that.
And I have that locked up. You should have yours
locked up, have access to it. I have a thumb
print style situations. So, you know, because they're coming out
with these this tech that goes actually on gun grips
(22:09):
where it's only your fingerprint will allow you to just
a weapon or like whoever else you have in your
environment for that thing. And I was like, so it's biometric. Yeah,
I was like that's interesting, Like, I mean, I wouldn't
put it on like my hunting well, I don't know,
I would have to. I would have to play with
it the seeds. See how I feel about it, Because
if you're wrapped in red the hot to trot, then
you don't want to have to thumb print to like
(22:30):
get access. I mean really right, but to get it
out of the glass case. I think practicing safety is
going to be the first thing at home talking to
your kids. Let them know like, hey, this is in
the house. This is the things that they're put away.
They're locked up, you know, be open with your yeah, exactly, Yeah,
(22:54):
unless you want to go and do something with mom
or dad or I have kids and that they they
go and stuff with me, and and you just teach
common sense gun handling skills and you go through range
safety requirements and everything like that, like, hey, this is
the muzzle, this is when it's hot, this is like,
this is the chamber, this is the safety. This is
a trigger. Don't a trigger, Like, don't swing your muzzle
(23:17):
around like it's this is why you cleaning stuff. My
dad taught me stuff I learned in boy Scouts. It's
it's stuff I teach. Did you have some time in
the Scouts? Is that right? Yeah? Dude. I love the
Scouts When I was growing up and my dad was
involved with it with me and my brother, and then
I got to I was actually about to make Eagle
Scout and I was going in ninth grade, so I
(23:38):
was gonna be like the youngest equal scout in our troop.
I had like two more things to do. But then
I was going to the high school, and uh, it
wasn't cool anymore, and alls I want to go to
dances and chase girls and hang out with my buddies.
I don't want to go camping with a bunch of
dudes anymore. Now I love camping with a bunch of dudes.
But it was like it was like at the time,
I was like, no, I'm not doing that. I'm not
(24:00):
on no right and it's in the back me too, bro,
don don't worry about it. I got to be uh,
let's see. So I went from tenderfoot to the next one,
and then I was pretty much done at about fifteen
skateboarding and having a skate shop and all this kind
of stuff. I was like, what am I doing? You know,
it's like I gotta go sell skateboards tomorrow. And then
now my son, though, he's pushing towards a life, right,
(24:22):
he needs to get a life as a scout, so
he's working on that. You know, he's fourteen, and we
find you know that as long as you can keep
probably staying the course from fourteen right now to fifteen
and accomplishing that. They're probably gonna get it once they
hit fifteen sixteen, they're gonna be coming back into Scouts
because they have found out they get a rank when
they get that eagle, and they're coming back into the
(24:43):
troop and they're like, hey, I just need to catch up.
And one of my young men, he comes in, he's
a sixteen year old and he's not even a star yet,
and he's trying to catch up, you know, and it's like, bro,
you gotta have at least six months between life and
the eagle, you know, just even just to even get that,
you have to have all these service projects. And he's
so he's chasing it, right. It's just something that's always
(25:03):
just like, oh, stick with him here if you're karate. Yeah.
Every summer I was, we would go to like uh
they would have camps out on the East coast, like
big big boy Scout camps, like with no Camp Nobi Bosco,
bush Kill Falls. I would stay there for like a
week or two in the summer and just like working
all my different marrow badges and make fires from run
(25:24):
around in the woods and play Capture the Flag and
go to the lake and it was awesome. You know
that totally just goes right into what you went into
in the navy. You know, yeah, who needs to start
a fire? Who's cold? Let's shiver. Watch if we shiver.
We'll stay alive until you're tired, and then you can't
(25:44):
shiver anymore, but we'll try. You know here, you are right, simple,
simple things. It's funny when you see a thirteen year
old leading grown adults on a seven point five mile
hike into the backwoods, but they're like, this is that plant,
this is that plant, that's that animal, and this is
that rocket. Don't step there. I mean, if there's something
to be said about that. With all of this business
(26:05):
that you're going after with the d D are they
are they pretty heavily with your company, I would imagine.
I mean it's tough doing government contracts, right, so you
have to really walk the dog, and it takes it's
a really long process and cycle. So we started off
with like super small they're called s b i RS
Small Business Innovative Research Grants or something along those lines.
(26:27):
And we started off small, like really small ones where
it was like a proof of concept and like a
power point presentation, and then it went to like making
it a reality. So the Air Force sponsored US for
a couple of those grants to do stuff at different
air bases, submarine bases have worked with US armies picking
up and so now it's like we've done really well,
(26:50):
and particularly in the d D space or like within
the military basis, it's starting to spread to other things
within like just a huge umbrella of the d O D.
And so yeah, we see a world where we're going
to be on many more military bases with their security count. Yeah,
I could see that shooters across military bases like oh yeah,
like Pentecle, Hawaii. Yeah, come on, I mean really, you know, uh,
(27:15):
it's just yeah, that's crazy. You know, it's just such
a surreal conversation I'm having about right now with you
as this whole you know, active shooter at these places
and you know how we're trying to thwart it, and uh,
it's kind of bringing it home a little bit. I
just so don't mind me if i feel I'm getting somber.
I just feel a little like, you know, my son
was in an active drill at school, you know, and
(27:38):
they forgot to release them from it and let them
know it was a drill, and so one of the
little girls in the class was just like crying and
screaming because it was about twenty minutes had gone by
and they were like still sheltered in place and no
one had like released the kids from this drill that
they planned, and so they yeah, I mean that's kind
of like just trauma. Yeah. I tell people like it's so,
(28:00):
you know, my parents and stuff to grow up doing
nuclear fallout shelter drills because of the Cold War. Then
we grew up doing firelarm drills. Like the idea of
an active shooter drolls like not even close, not not
even in the realm of reality. Then you had senior
in high school and the combine happened, and it's just
(28:21):
like the world drastically changed from that, or at least
in the United States, and now we have our kids
doing these active shooter drolls all the time, like it's
like norm like a fire alarm drill, and you're like,
what the fuck. And that's why I see it. Yeah,
I never had that camera eventually, or this type of
technology being on every camera eventually, just that it's more
way more. It's like twelve or fifteen times more people
(28:41):
die from gun violence every year than they do fires.
But every building you walk into as a smoke detector, firelarm,
higher suppression system, and like it's just gonna be code
where you have to have this technology on to help
with the first responder so they co get medical aid
and aarro as fast as possible to stop the threat
and uh, get people, it's true. And get some decent
(29:02):
cameras for your security system. What pixel camera back, you
know what I mean? I want cameras that can at
least see the assailants stabbed me, okay, so they could
catch him right, Like who was that? You know, it's
like I may not make it, but at least you
got the footage. And when you see some of the
footage that comes over the news of like whatever robbery
(29:24):
or something like that kind of news, and you're like,
what is that camera from like five? What? What is that? Really?
I mean? Is that is that coda? Black and white film?
What are they what are they still using? There was
a then record that Yeah, it's true. It's like a
little bit goes into invest in your security system, right,
that's what you're there to help with too. I'm sure
(29:44):
you've got some quality systems that you can recommend if
somebody decides to, you know, hit you up. And I
just want to let anyone know, no one's no one's
paying me to talk about his business. This is something
that's very specific and very top of the conversation. And
and he's leading le even the charge with this artificial
intelligence and the conversation of facial recognition. We're all being
(30:04):
facially recognized, whether you think it's walking down the street
or when you go to look at your iPhone. Okay,
when you're like looking at your cell phone and it's
like facial recognition to open that thing, like every every Yeah,
we don't do any facial like. We just focused on
detecting guns, which is great. We're like, we're focusing on
this one specific type of object. We're not collecting any
personal identifiable information. We're not making lists of people to
(30:30):
watch or anything like that. We're just straight up like, hey,
if you want to know if there's a gun on
your campus or your your business or your base or
whatever whatever the environment is, like shopping mall, because you know,
hospital right here, there's a gun right here, and then
they enact that's right, they enact their their protocols to
respond to that a while the first responders are coming. Yeah,
(30:50):
it's like was that old school that's the old Chevy
car Star where you'd hit it. It's like you roll
and it automatically like sends the satellite signal like you're
an accident. We're sitting one right to you know, right
onto your spot now on star. Yeah, it's like I'm
not also not paid by them for plugging them. But
(31:11):
on start right, we all know what that was. You push.
It's like you must have a nine dollar a month membership,
like I have my Like, oh yeah, exactly, exactly. Well,
I mean it's just the way of the future. You know,
technology is gaining steam. You know, you've got you know,
super artificial intelligence sensors out there in the world since
(31:31):
for smart cities being constructed, and you know the gun recognition,
weapon recognition, you know, probably crossbow recognition, I mean recognition. Yeah.
I wish it was just crossbows. You know, if you
could imagine the right to bear arms with a musket
right now, active shooters would just be like a one
shot and then they'd pull on a blade because they
(31:53):
got time to reload. Right. Black Beard carried eight pistols
on him black Beard the Pirate, so he had pop
pop pop pop because he couldn't reload them, right. So
I'm just I'm just saying like, there is that opportunity
to you know, but I know that my community loves to,
you know, have their things, and that's fine. Have them.
Yeah right, just lock them up. Okay, that's what's up.
(32:17):
I don't care if you have a anything. I'm not
even gonna talk about no more. I'm gonna stop because
I got it too, That's all. But I will sit. Yeah,
it is, it is, and it gets crazy, and I
don't want to offend anybody because I do and I don't,
but I want to talk about what you're wearing on
your shirt and I feel like I know that logo.
It feels like to me, yeah, I'm actually Yeah. So
(32:39):
we went out and did their podcast, me and a
couple of the founders. Um, we went out to Utah
to your Jeff and uh yeah it was awesome. We
went on their show and I got I rocked your
T shirt all the time. I love it. It's actually
like it looks like the Ready Man logo. And then yeah, yeah, yeah,
we're actually well, I just had Jeff. I just had
(32:59):
him on the podcast. He was he just he was
my two shows before this, I had Jeff Kirkham from
I think that's probably who took you out. You know,
I forget his name that interviewed me. I have to
look at my phone. I'm so bad with names. My
brains like, so there's probably Jeff and Paul and uh
you probably back controller and then did stuff at the
(33:20):
Well he was green Beret and he had that room
at Black Rifle Studios where it was a really nice
podcast studio. Would you go into that? Yeah? It was sweet. Yeah,
that was that was what I used to use to
until COVID. That was my studio. Crazy that I can't
remember his name right now. I'll look it up in
a second. Now I'm in Whitefish, Montana actually today, Oh
(33:40):
are you going skiing? And my Fanci was with me
just snowboarding yesterday but it was snow and so we're
getting like fresh powder as we're going. I love that.
I love that. So my wife wants to go to
Big Sky. That's where you're at right now? Or what
Whitefish Mountain? White Fish, Whiteish north so like Missoul about
two hours north of and well, but like later tonight,
(34:01):
I'm going down to Cal's Belts or Black Rifle Coffee
place that they just built there with Andy Stump and
going on his Clear Hot podcast with some of my founders.
But we know Andy from he was like our instructor
and the Seal teams at one point and some of
the guys deployed with them that are gonna go be
on the show. So it'll be cool. That's awesome, bro.
And if you're ever here in Utah and you want
to go ride up at like any of the brightening
(34:23):
or something, you just let me know. Yeah, we'll go.
Yeah for your fiance. My wife will all ride, Yeah,
for sure. She's snowboards and there's got a great terrain park.
You know, lots of good I mean not so much.
It's not there's there's vertical there, but it's a lot
more like long runs for especially snowboards. Yes, we're going
on runs yesterday that we're over an hour long, which
is amazing, Like you don't get that on the East Coast,
(34:44):
Like you can go up to Vermont and get like
some decent you can get some decent ones from the
East Coast from Vermont, but like they were getting long
run yesterday and we're not going to rust off. We
haven't gone in a while, and we haven't gone it
all this season. But it was nice as gorgeous. I
love it. Yeah, I'm gonna whom that you're gonna you
wear a helmet. I usually do, yesterday I actually didn't.
(35:04):
I was just were just we weren't going down. I mean,
we're all greens and blues. Yesterday, we weren't doing anything.
I got. I got you, bro, I'm just gonna let
you know. I'm just gonna be Jimmy Cricket right now.
Just whisper in your ear, so let you know. So
let you know we're not getting younger. You know, I
take any more hits on my head. I've taken too many.
So I was cutting some trees yesterday, going through them,
(35:25):
you know, with my wife, and I was leading, and
I came up a little high and hit the back
of my edge against the tree and I was like, oh, ship,
you're a real tree, bro. That tree is like oh,
And it knocked me down a little bit. I just
off balance off my board and I was like, I
got a helmet on. I got a helmet on. That's
all I'm thinking. It's like I got a broken arm,
but I got a helmet on. I'm taking your advice
(35:47):
because you got it. It's not even about like you
hitting a tree or sometime. I mean that that's obviously
a part of it, but you all know that other
knuckleheads that are out there that are gonna come true
into you. Ye. No one's even like I'm always like
coming out or you know, right side, and there was
just like trying to like cut You've got fast, dude,
cruise and past you trying like fourteen year olds, I
(36:08):
have no fear and they're just like flying right yeah. Yeah,
and we'd like bells like bring ringing on the beach
on your bike's ring ring coming through ring. I'm cool
with that. A whistle you could take a wid I
haven't like I love taking my kids and stuff too,
but most good person like I I'm like going out
of speed where I have a beer in my hand
(36:29):
and a smoke and I'm like I'm flying totally nice.
Oh yeah, we'll get along just fine, dude. I have
no problems with that. And if again, if you're ever
out in Utah, just let me know. We'll go right
up to Brighton and uh let's go right up there
and ride. It was we got about a hundred and
right now, so we've already maxed out from our last
two seasons. This year. Actually lived in Tahoe. I dropped
(36:51):
out for a semester just before I even went into
the military, and I just I just bought a plane
ticket to Reno and I packed rag and within like
five days and left. I had no plan and I
got out at Reno and I was like, this is desert.
I was like, I was expecting Tahoe. I got a cab.
I only had like four dollars in my pocket. I
took a cab from Reno to Lake Tahoe and was like,
dropped me off at the first ski resort, and they
(37:12):
dropped me off at Sugar Bowl and I went in.
I was like, hey, do you have a job, and
they're like yeah, And I took a job like kitchen
sometimes I've worked out to be like a lift operator
and then smart though kitchen housing barracks warm thing with
a bunch of other employees, and it was like I
was there for four months. It was awesome. That's awesome.
What a great core memory right there, dude, that's awesome,
(37:35):
right just might might have just turned nineteen, and I
was like, I need something different in my life right now.
Going into the Navy, coming out West, you wind up
probably going through what Coronado and all of that for
your Seal Team train and then you got put into
a team that we don't really talk about. You got
Seal Team six. We hear about Seal Team one, Seal
(37:56):
Team three, but you're part of Seal Team four. It's
is that now a lot of us automatically maybe assume
everybody goes to Afghanistan. Everybody in the Seals just goes
to Afghanistan, boom, But was your team designated to a
certain area of operation like now we're so just they
restructured to Seal Team for before nine eleven used to
cover down on South America. Post nine eleven, they changed
(38:19):
it all up. I'm not sure how it is now,
but they changed it all up where it basically every
whenever a Seal Team was ready to deploy, they were
going wherever the action, like you're going Iraq, You're gonna
so yet, somewhere in Africa, whatever. So I spent all
my time in Afghanistan. Combat wise, my first deployment, we
had some platoons go to Iraq, but they were winding down,
wrapping it up, and in Afghanistan was really picking back up.
(38:41):
So I spent some time in like this small fob
with just our platoon by the border of Pakistan, and
it was it was wild that first employment. We're the
most attacked FOP while we were there in country, and
there's like they're only a handful of us staying in
this thing, and it was like every day, three times
a day, rockets, mortars, small arms fire and then but
(39:02):
your this against us to like really stop it. It
was like they didn't want us going out at night anymore.
Eventually our commander was like, these guys are gonna get
fucking smoked if they keep just we're just like sitting ducks.
And then finally took the gloves off and we got
after it, and we didn't get it to the last
three months of the deployment was like roughly eight months.
(39:24):
The last eight months or three months at the point
we didn't get attacked at all. It also helped it
was winner. But then we started moving into like village
stability operations, which was they would take a handful of
green Berets, seals or whoever and Stickleman. You would literally
live in the village with people and like sit around,
drink tea and eat goat and and then you would
(39:44):
like try to get them stand up for themselves and
in a nutshell yah, politically, you know a lot of
green Berets are you know, just instilled governments. It was exactly.
It wasn't a typical mission set for Seal at all.
Like it was definitely a green Berry mission. So like
before we actually enter our v s O site or
(40:05):
village ability site, me and two other guys from my opportunity,
we went out and stayed with green Brays for like
two weeks out there to see how they're running their
VSO and what was working, what wasn't, and then we
went and stood up ours. So it was a really
interesting deployment. It was very very active. It was everything
I asked for and was expecting from the Seal. So
kind of lucked out with that. And then the second
(40:27):
deployment went back to Afghanistan and I went in on.
I got attached to a NATO's Special Forces unit. I
got attached to the Polish Special Forces and what they
would Yeah, I worked with the GRAM and j W.
K and so they like one or two seals and
with them and then like we would help them intel
(40:48):
and at whatever they need helos, We'll go get helos
you need intel together a package and then like direct
on this for like what we wanted to get done.
So it was a big force multiplier for us. So
like instead of like the US having to put a
whole platoon of seals in one area, you can now
only have to put like two Americans, but used the
Native Special Forces. And I was like I lived with
(41:09):
those guys for months and they just like really took
me in and it was a great time. We're doing
all some missions. It was. It was a lot of
nighttime stuff blowing up like I d cachets and crazy.
It was. It was. It was fun everything you wanted,
you know, it's what you're weird, you know. It would
be me and like twelve Polish guys out on knop
like the Afghans, and I was the only one speaking English,
(41:31):
and I was like, I was like, well, ship hits
the fan. At least I was talking to the birds,
like I was talking to guys. Yeah, hey guys, so
I'm down here by myself and how are you doing up? There. Yeah,
I'm not really by myself, but mentally yeah, yeah, mentally.
And then there was always like that one or two
Polish guys. I would speak their broken English, but after
working with them for a while, like you just learned
how to communicate. I would pick up some of their language.
(41:52):
They're getting better with mine. And at the end of
the day, you're special operators, like you know what needs
to be done and we're body language and everything like that.
But it was an awesome experience working with much would
or rather have been with a seal platoon, but it
was still it was still good. And then there was
a couple of seals that rotated in and out with me.
I stayed there most of the time. And then like
so I wasn't always solo, but it was it was good.
(42:15):
Like they haven't forgot about you're new. Yeah, are you
real Polish? I forgot that. I slept through Polish class. Sorry,
Oh that's intense. You know. They were crazy that they
(42:35):
would make It was like jail house wine. They would
take like jerry cans that you would see that you
would put on like the back of a humby and
they were setting up. They would use fruit cocktail yeast
to make like basically do this stuff would rip fucking
paint off a car. But you got used to drinking
it after a while. But it probably took a couple
of years off my life. Oh yeah, you're good. It's okay.
(42:58):
You're like a cat. It's got to count all those lives,
those close ones. You're like, Okay, these guys like that. Well,
I I think that, you know, the Polish Gram are
just one of those special units that don't really get
a lot of like spotlight on them, and they like it.
I get it. And at the same time, you know,
actually I think there's a character and call of duty
(43:19):
though that is off the GRAM right now. And so
you know, they're all about that piano. They have like
a piano at their headquarters and it's a very significant thing.
It's very interesting about the ground. So when I went
in and I only worked with them for like two weeks,
they ended up doing a mission and we're basically advising him,
like stop doing it this way, but I'm not going
to go into crazy details about it, but we're like
(43:41):
sure me. And there was another seal that was with
me and he was really working the GRAM. I was
working at jw K, but we're like right next to
each other and then we work with each other and
the GRAM they ended up going out to do this
op and we were like advising against it because of
the Intel packet what we're seeing through Intel. And then
they got they got fucking ambushed. They lost like four
dudes or true commander took a fucking shot in the face.
(44:04):
It was bad, and so that they got the rest
of the poem. For the next couple of months like that,
they weren't operating, so we just focused specifically on j
w K. But it was like it turned into a
ship show. You always feel bad for guys when I
lose a brother, and it's that's uh. I felt bad
for them, But they just didn't operate for the next
couple of months while we're there, So we just worked
with the j w K, j w K publish Green
(44:25):
Brace that these guys were awesome too, I see, okay,
so the GRAB would be looked like a seal, right,
and then the jw K would be the Green Brace.
That's s style. That's cool. Yeah, that's cool. It's it's
it's a bummer that you know that ambush took place,
because I mean like, these guys are trained up, you know,
whether there's a packet telling them not to or not,
they still yeah, you know, you get you like you,
(44:46):
you know. And then there's someone out there. He says
that his dirt means more than the side of your dirt.
And now you guys are fighting over this dirt. Ye,
and you're both up trained obviously, huh has to be.
They just they thought they had good intel the this
target for someone, and they walked into a straight up
ambush and his compound they had like holes caught out
in the walls and like they walked right into the
(45:08):
dead zone and it was just like damn. The fact
that some of them got out alive is really impressive
because the four yard and they're just getting a ship
hammered out of them. Wow. Yeah you were there to advise. Yeah,
I know, bro, sorry about that to you, and I'm
just letting you know, okay, it's part of the job. Yeah,
(45:32):
I understood, understood, understood. Well that's crazy. I'm not gonna
try to end it on that, but thanks for being
who you are. Thanks for going after your dreams. Thanks
for reading a book in seventh grade that steered you
into you know, choosing to fight for the flag that
I get to sleep under at night. Thank you for
(45:53):
you know, being an outdoorsman and a father and and
coming home to us safely, and so thank you too
for me to you for all those things. So thank you, yeah, man, yeah,
thank you, and thank you for all you do getting
the word out and all these great stories and people
you have on your show. And I appreciate it. Rat
it's awesome than beer. You're very welcome. It's that beards
(46:14):
perfect you. I'll tell you when it gets ice beards
from snowboard and bris it was like the big chunks
in there. And yes, I love that. I know my
wife's all got herself bundled up like a ninja, and
I'm like, just grow your beard, just let it go,
let it go. Well, look, I know you've got other
(46:35):
podcasts to do, and you've got a busy schedule and
you're a popular dude. So thank you so much. We'll
make sure that deero Eyes dot com gets mentioned in
our typed out soft reap dot com post. And I
just want to thank you so much for serving our country,
being a really chill dude to take the time to
talk with me this morning on your vacation and thanks
(46:55):
so much for joining me. Do you have anything you
want to say? No? Yeah, just check out zero dot
com and thanks wrong. You know, let's go make a difference.
Let's go make a difference. All right, Well this is
rad I'll be happy, Mike saying peace you them listening
to self red Radio. M
A beautiful If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough.
You're listening to Soft Red Radio Special Operations, military news
and straight talk with the guys in the community. Hey,
(00:35):
what's up. Welcome back to another episode of Soft Rep Radio.
Those that you are watching already see that I have
my guest on and it is Mike laithe Seal team
for operator United States Navy drifter in life. I like
to see those bumper stickers out there on the road
that say not all who wander our loss. Mike, Welcome
to the show, Arad. I appreciate it. It's awesome to
(00:57):
be on here. Yeah, it's we're happy to have you know.
Brandon's like, YO, dial them up, let's get him, and
I was like, let's get it. And what we're gonna
talk about is, really, what was it that drove you
to join the seals? You know, how old were you
and was it like a high school? Like, tell me
a little bit about what took you from boom. It's
(01:17):
kind of a funny story, so, I mean, everyone's story
that gets to the seal teams or any special operations
unit's pretty unique. But when I asked to go back
to when I was in grade school. So I was
in fifth grade, I got in trouble for whatever reason,
I was always getting in trouble. I got grounded and
I wasn't allowed to watch TV. I mean, this is
before iPads and all that ship so it's like all
I had was TV. So my mom was like, read
(01:38):
a book, and I was like, I don't want to
read a book, and she took me to It was
Barnes and Noble, and I walked in and I went
over to the military section, and right away there was
a there was a book there a guy all painting
up in camouflage, hiding in the jungle, and there's a
big gold trident on it. I had no idea what
Navy Seals were at the time, but I just let
the comfort looked cool as ship. So I was like,
it was about Vietnam for dogs, you know Frogman in Vietnam.
(02:02):
It was a lot of Seal Team one stories, if
I remember right. And I was hooked. And then like
within months the movie with Charlie Sheen came out in
Navy Seals, and I was like, I was like done,
I'm doing this. And so then in sixth grade in
my school district where I grew up. You graduated sixth
grade and went to middle school and they did like
a graduation ceremony. We had a yearbook and in the
(02:22):
yearbook it asked in twenty years, I will be dot
dot dot, and like every kid in my class wrote,
they're gonna be. I grew up in Philly, so everyone
was gonna be like playing for the Sixers, the Eagles,
the Phillies, and I wrote, I'm gonna be United States
Navy Seal working on top secret missions. And I totally
forgot that I did that. And when I graduated seal training,
one of my buddies, his mom was like, they were
(02:45):
moving and they cleaned out the house and she came
across the yearbook and she was like reading the stories
about all the kids we grew up with and she
was laughing and she was like, holy shit, Mike's actually
doing this. And they gave the yearbook to my dad,
who gave it to me at graduation and I was like, damn,
And I was like, that's pretty cool. Yeah, you're uplishing
you know, your youthful goals, bro subconsciously right, that book
just inspired you. Yeah. So it was like so high school,
(03:07):
I was kind of a lost cause just ended up.
I was total knucklehead, went to college and I wasn't
some I wasn't doing awesome. Let's let's just say I
was just worried, party and having a good time, trying
to figure out life. So on some wild oats and
then nine eleven happened, and like shortly after that, I
was just like, this is what I gotta do. And
uh about a year after nine eleven. It took me
(03:30):
a little while to get through the recruiting process because
I had some legal troubles growing up. But then I
I finally got into the Navy and uh went to
the Fleet for a little bit, then ended up at buds.
What was your need of the Navy at first? When
you before you got two buds, Like, you know, we
always hear about the romance of buds. What was it
that you did prior to that? So at the time this,
(03:50):
you know, it's going back to like two thousand to
two thousand three, the Navy, you could get a Seal
Challenge contract, but the seal Navy seals didn't have their
own rating, Like eventually they had their own rating or
called like special s o S Special Operators, But at
the time, you had to pick a specific rating in
the Navy to get a billet to buds, and so
I was like, what's the fastest thing to get me
(04:11):
to boot camp? And they're like, we have an opening
for parachute riggers, air crew survival equipment and so um.
They wouldn't give me a Seal challenge contract of course
to my police record. So I had to get a
waiver just to get into the regular Navy, got into
the regular Navy and then had to go to my
first command and try out to go through like a
regular fleet sail or applying the buds. Yeah, that's what
(04:32):
I did. That's awesome. I mean you just kept at it.
You just wanted to serve the country. You know. There
was a huge you know, rally around the campfire so
to speak, during nine eleven. I remember it very much,
and uh, you know, there was not so much divisiveness.
It was like you're either with us or against us.
You know, It's not like the melting pot that we
see today. And I have to say that, you know,
social media helps perpetuate a lot of the narrative out there,
(04:56):
and I just would like to see, you know, us
have that same mindse like what you wanted to do
for the heart of it all be in place right
now with kind of everyone in the world right like
to say, like, I don't know how to say it. Man,
I guess I just want peace in a redwood tree
with an a king. All right, let's just live there.
I mean, I don't get like social media just perpetuates
(05:17):
like the people that are on the fringes and they
get the loudest voice because the garners like the most attention.
But that's not like I think how you know of
America really wants to be like we get the two
and a half percent fringe on on each side, which
unfortunately just like dominates any kind of news and media,
and so people think everything is in a shiitter. But
(05:38):
I still believe in the American people on the American
dream and are red, white and blue. So that's what's
I'm the same. Yeah, I just hun and I'm glad
to hear that from you. Now, Um, you enlisted in
the military, which is um, did you go through your
college career or did you just enlist? You said, I
dropped out to enlist. My dad was a construction worker
(06:02):
doing water pipe stuff. My mom was a hairdresser. They
never went to college, so they were pretty excited for
me to like graduate college, and I was like going
in my senior year and I was like come out
and when they were like what, and I was like,
don't worry, I'll finish my degree on them in And
I did. I finished my degree on active duty all
nights and weekends. When I graduate, I sent the certificate
to my mom, make her all happy. And then uh,
(06:23):
that's now I unlisted. I like being an eed dog.
You get the best jobs. Stayment listed then the whole time,
even with your degree. Yeah. So I hit my tenure
mark and it was kind of like do I stay
in for another ten or do I get out? At
the time, I had three kids. I have four kids now,
and I was like, dude, I was never home. I
need to do something different. I saw the Wars winding down.
I didn't want to be stuck in like a training
(06:44):
cell all the time, and I was like do I
do I stay in and go office? Like I don't know.
I was going through a bunch of stuff. And then
I applied to business school. I never thought I would
get into a school like war in business school, and
I did, and it was in Philly where I grew up.
So I moved back to Philly with my family kind
of figure out life. Get a cheese steak with Whiz
from either one side of the street or the other
side of the street. Just it's neither of them and
(07:08):
still Sandro's, And oh, there we go. We're gonna put
that in the comments. Desandros, We're gonna put that in
the comments. Gino is saying, I think that's more like
a tourist. I don't get me wrong, They're good, right, No,
I get you. There's how many other good places in
Philly for cheese steaks. Oh, you gotta be stoked at
the Eagles are going to them? Yeah, a Super Bowl?
(07:28):
I mean, come on, right, Chiefs and the Eagles, Andy
Reid coming back. It's funny. It's like Andy Reid coming
back after he you know, he took the Eagles to
Super Bowl loss, but he's coming back. And then you've
got the Kelsey Brothers against you. There's just so many
cool tidbits with this Super Bowl. Well here in Utah,
those two bros are the two players from Grantsville High
(07:49):
School are going to be playing against each other in
the Super Bowl. So there's the two brothers, and then
there's Kelsey. I didn't realize from you if that's the
same two. Actually they both played at Grantsville High School
here just about twenty minutes west of where I'm at,
and now, like the news here is never Grantsville, but
(08:09):
now Grantsville is like, yeah, everybody Grantsville, you know. So
all right, so, you know, go for both of those athletes.
Good luck to both teams. It's a sports, a proper sport,
you know, and let's let's just listen to the refs
and let your coaches do the talking. Brothers too that
they run an awesome podcast. It might just be called
the Kelsey Broller Podcast or something. They're hilarious, they're good.
(08:31):
Oh yeah, we'll put that in that. We'll plug it. Dude.
That's great, and it's cool because it's you know, I'm
sure that when this goes up, I think the Super
Bowl is like the eighteen or nineteenth, isn't it. I
think of this month. I think it's next Sunday, so this, yeah,
so this will probably go up after So let's make
a prediction. All right. You're calling it for who oh
the Eagles? Yeah? By ten? Yeah, I think I'll say
(08:55):
eagles by a field goal. Okay. I think that's okay, spread,
so we're good it. Yeah, that's that's like a mail
by director laces out. Okay, so we'll go back to
this and listen to say Okay, let's go, let's go,
let's do it now. The thing you talked about was
the college that you got into work college after you
got out of the the sea or you applied, You're like,
(09:17):
what I'm gonna do ten more years and you're like, entrepreneur. Huh,
that's what's in your mind. You're just like, go after it.
You always gravitated towards the entrepreneur thing. I was always
doing crazy ship when I was a kid, like kids
in the neighborhood to help me figure out alcohol soul
and make money with like sid Like I made comic
books when I was in elementary school and we would
sell them in school. This is like when the Marvel
(09:38):
cards were getting real big, before Marvel is what it
is today. Side landscape and businesses, shovel and snow, all
that stuff. I got suspended from school because I used
to buy air heads at wholesale and then I would
sling them out of my backpack at school for like,
I get them for like a nickel of piece, and
I'd sell them for twenty five cents a piece. I
was making like a hundred bucks a week and change
getting to the bank in like seventh and eighte oh yeah,
(10:00):
And then I got suspended if we're doing it? And
I was like, wait, isn't what I'm learning more from
this than any fucking bullshit math class were giving me.
I mean, you're really selling air heads, dude, that's great.
I mean, not to steal that. But my dad had
vending machines in the school I went to because it
was attached to the armory, and he was a Green
Beret that his unit was attached to there. So there's
an army attached to the to the Junior High. And
(10:22):
he put a key around my neck and he's like,
anytime you see these vending machines turned off in the gym,
you just turn them right on, okay. So so I
would be the kid that everybody roll with. We go
over to the vending machines, just turn them right on
my dad's coke machine and they'd all just get cokes
right there. Yeah, hundred percent, dude, and hustling as well.
I used to sell grilled cheeses for a dollar or
(10:42):
or a hole for two because I didn't have a
job at thirteen. Who's gonna hire me? You know? So
I was everybody's selling lemonade, and I was like, I
got you something different than Cody. So I'm gonna sell
grilled cheese with Velvita bro And I sold him all
thirteen bucks. But I was like, what are you doing
selling all your diet cokes from the vending machine. He's like, oh,
it's good times, Bro. Like I just always had that
(11:04):
entrepreneurial bug. And then when I got out active duty
and I was at school, I was at you know,
I was at this fancy business school, and I was
just like I didn't even know what half the stuff was.
I was looking at like the difference between investment banking,
private equity, hedge funds, and I was just trying to
figure it out. The problem was going entrepreneurial at that
time is like I have kids. I needed support. And
when you're an entrepreneur and go to a startup, like
(11:26):
you're in a hurt locker for quite some time until
it starts becoming successful, if it becomes successful at all,
so I took jobs that paid for a bit, but
I was doing a side like I started off doing
a real state side hustle. I was about to start
off flipping properties, and then from there I rolled in
and getting like multifamily real estate investment so I could
get like monthly cash flow off the rents. And then
(11:49):
when we started zero wise and eighteen, I sold all
of that to dump it into the company so we
could get ourselves going. And then he had a course
to focus on now with zero eyes. And yeah, if
I read a little bit about like the docier that
came through on it was like right after the Parkland shootings,
you know, and of course other shootings. I'm sure you
know at the schools or at soft targets that we
(12:10):
all you know, frequent, whether it's the mall or the walmarts.
It kind of impacts you, like it impacts me, but
you're doing something about it. Yeah, tell me about that. Yeah, yes,
So me and another co found when we get around
and kick around business ideas all the time or like beers, coffee, whatever,
even on the phone text, and then the start of business,
you have to be solving a problem for someone, right,
(12:30):
and every time we turned on the news. I mean,
nothing's changed since Columbine. It's it's only gotten worse. But
this is going back to two thousand seventeen, and it
was like every time you turn on news, it was
another shooting, another shooting, another shooting. And then the Parkland
school shooting happened. And my daughter's school, my oldest daughter,
she was in middle school at the time that school.
(12:51):
Her school started doing a lockdown drills, also known as
active shooter drills, and she came home really upset, like
that we had to do this drill or they're gonna
shoot our school like these other schools. And I was like,
this is fucking nuts. Like and I knew some folks
that were doing facial recognition technology and that was always
in the back of my head and all the stuff
that was happening with AI and computer vision, just trying
(13:12):
to learn more about it. And then fast forward a
couple of days. I was just sitting in our school
waiting for an indoor lacrosse practice to be over, and
as I was sitting, I was just looking around as
a camera like every twenty feet in a school, and
he could do some quick math, you know, like there
has to be two cameras in this building and they
have security guards, security guards walking around there like, and
I was like, Hey, who's looking at the cameras and
(13:32):
he was like he like laughed, He was like, no,
one's looking at the cameras. We only look at them
after something happens. I was like, why don't we use
him instead of like doing facial recognition where everyone has
all these privacy concerns, why don't we just focus on
detecting a gun. If someone has a gun out in
the open, like particularly out of school, I think everyone
wants to know. So now we could give that information
of like what that person looks like, what type of
weapon are carrying, how many shooters are and GEO locate
(13:55):
them on a map for first responders and local staff
and securities, so they could get people to safety as
fast as possible, but also decrease the response time and
stop the threat, stop the bleeding, you know, save time,
save lives. And had that I called up my my buddies,
my co founders, and I was like, yeah, I got
this idea. And I was like, you guys in we
all quit our jobs and moved into my couple of
(14:17):
them moved into my basement, living on Hammocks for a
couple of months and we sell funded the business to
go for like the first year, I was just trying
to figure it out. And here we are five years
later and we have almost thirty employees, were in thirty
five states, growing in schools, commercial places, and military installations. Yeah,
they're finding it a need to say, hey, if this
(14:38):
does happen here, it's not to stop the situation. It's
too zero in on my pencil. If you will freeze
frame it freeze frame meat holding said pencils, send that immediately,
Like this is what we're looking for, this this situation,
and it's going to alert the authorities and those that
need to know that this is happening and so they
can respond before anybody can even get to the phone. Yeah,
(14:59):
it's just real time actionable intelligence in a perfect world,
like we detect that weapon, shots or even far and
we can stop it before anyone gets hurt. And it's
like that's to win everyone wants. I mean, you're coming
up with something though, there's it's better than you know,
sending my kid with I mean, I'm not trying to
dog it, but like a kevil Ark backpack, you know,
I'm not trying to say if you said your kid
with the kevil Aar backpack to school, there's I'm just saying, like,
(15:21):
we just that's that's great. Yeah. All the security cameras
are already there, so like, why don't we make them
active to detect the gun? Like everywhere you go to
security camera were monitored walking down the streets. Yeah, trying
to give away my medical information, hippa. Yeah, let's go on,
(15:43):
hippo hippa. Come on, man, if you tell me it's
not hippa, it's you, come on. I'm sorry. I just
you know, I just want to this facial recognition man,
it is everywhere I was in London, you know, and
they say when you're walking through London for ten minutes,
you're like filmed times. It was the most most video
in the world. Yeah, I just walk. I'm just like
(16:04):
I feel safe in London. I'm like la la la,
because I just feel like, do you like what you see?
Are you enjoying your show? You know? That's really that's
like Truman, here we are, you know, and when you
referenced AI, it's an acronym that we're using more and more.
That's artificial intelligence. And that's where we're getting these types
of facial recognition platforms or gun recognition platforms. That's pretty
(16:28):
cool now it's it's can it only be pulled out
so you have to actually pull out the device to
be scanned, or can it be like can you see yea,
so we we we don't do concealed weapons. It could
be partially so it's all based on off the camera feed.
It could be partially concealed, but then like multiple variables
come to play like lighting distance, etcetera, so that the
(16:49):
simplest way we tell people is like if a human
is sitting down looking at that video feed and they
could tell like, hey, that's a gun. Are zero eyes
platform will also detected it took gun. I see. Yeah,
that's amazing because it's just gonna get more refined, you know.
We're yeah, it's crazy how much it improves. It's like
(17:10):
a snake eating its own tail, like the feedback loop
of it improving. But the really interesting thing about it
is like the detections, Like we see detections that are
so far away we're like holy shit, or like weird
lighting conditions, and it's like it just works really well
and you can get that information to people as soon
as possible with your testing you've been doing with range
(17:31):
and whatnot, sure, and just trying to see what you
can pick up, how it can pick up with that algorithm.
I'm sure you guys keep that close to your chest
that no one can you know, Yeah, go after that.
Like all the data we use for it. We sure
in house. All of our developers are in house. Um yeah,
it's it's our coke recipe. And you have a knack
for looking for veterans that are qualified to come and
(17:53):
work with you if they apply themselves. Is that right now? Yeah,
we love higher and vets. It's um. So. Out of
the hundred and thirty employees that we have, roughly probably
about seventy five might even be like our veterans a branch. Actually,
we don't have anyone from Space Force. We did get
our first coast. We have a lot of Marines. You
(18:14):
have Coast Guard. You got Coast Guard, you got a
count coast guards. They listened to I don't care Department
of Department of Homeland Security. Man the negative who's going
to fight for America on the shores first his coast,
the coast. Yeah, Yeah, we got people from all brands.
I mean, we love hiring vets, right, it's like that. Yeah,
(18:34):
you know, they're trainable. They got all those soft skills
that are really important teamwork, communication skills. They could be
a leader, they could be a follower. They'll grind it out,
they'll figure it out. But being trainable it's like the
most important aspect of that because they could come in
and know anything about computer vision AI, how its sales,
(18:55):
any of that stuff, like, and we just we just
train them on it and we show up, just go up. Well,
we'll get you up to speed pretty quickly. I tell
my staff every day, thank you for coming to work. Yes,
and they look at me like, wow, why you're here?
Don never only get one thing done today? It's at
least at least you're moving in the right direction exactly
you came to work. He's committed to coming to work
(19:17):
and uh, that's awesome. So do you find that using
your seal background has helped you and your military background
in this endeavor? You know, yeah, it definitely does. It
really helped because because we're working in a security space,
we're we're dealing with in our process with our clients
or potentially going to be our clients. In our sales process,
we're always dealing with like security director, security minded folks,
(19:38):
and it really helps coming from like a military and
then we have law enforcement backgrounds on our team too.
We could speak the language outside of like the I
T tech realm. We could speak the language of like
what to do about certain threats and timing and movement
and how it can help and what's the really at
the end of the day, if you're paying for this,
what's the what's the value they were getting out of it?
(20:00):
And we could easily show it. But once people have
like zero eyes on our platform and we see it
over and over and over again with with clients, what
they do is like they'll go put on like a
small subset of their cameras and then they have the
local police run drills with their security team, like an
active shooter drill, etcetera. And they do it without the
software running, and they do it with the software running
(20:20):
because they want to test that. They want to like
punch holes in it and they want to kick the tires,
and we're like, yeah, go for it. Do it everyone.
After they use it and they get the alerts and stuff,
they're just like, damn this needs to be on every camera.
This is so helpful because if you think about it, now,
an active shooter event happens, the way the police are
responding is from a nine one one call. So shots
are fired at whatever building or whatever location. Everyone starts scattering,
(20:44):
some people run, some people don't. They have tunnel vision,
their hearts rights through the roof, they're sweating, they're scared,
they're locking up. And then within a minute of that shooting,
you're finally getting some NIE on one calls and a
person is like, hey, there's there's a there's a shooter here,
and they're where are you And they're like they just
named a building or the campus, like oh, I'm at
such and such school or such and such mall or whatever,
(21:07):
such and such military base. Okay where and it could
be like a hundred acre campus and they like, we'd
dialing them into to the X to exactly where they
need to go, not only that from one oh three,
yeah right, And so once the police or first responders
like use our sister, like damn, this is a game changer,
and I'm like, yeah, it's gonna it's gonna help. Now.
(21:27):
Is it like the cure all to this? No? Absolutely not.
But it's like it's something moving us in a right
there action to make a difference. Well, I completely agree
with that, you know, and if it can help, you know,
to just extinguish the situation. You know, no one wants
it to be a loss of life, right, but still
lock up your guns at home, parents, Yes, yes, put
(21:48):
a lock on it. Yes, let's start there, Okay, because
that's an accessible situation, right, let's just be aware of that.
And I have that locked up. You should have yours
locked up, have access to it. I have a thumb
print style situations. So, you know, because they're coming out
with these this tech that goes actually on gun grips
(22:09):
where it's only your fingerprint will allow you to just
a weapon or like whoever else you have in your
environment for that thing. And I was like, so it's biometric. Yeah,
I was like that's interesting, Like, I mean, I wouldn't
put it on like my hunting well, I don't know,
I would have to. I would have to play with
it the seeds. See how I feel about it, Because
if you're wrapped in red the hot to trot, then
you don't want to have to thumb print to like
(22:30):
get access. I mean really right, but to get it
out of the glass case. I think practicing safety is
going to be the first thing at home talking to
your kids. Let them know like, hey, this is in
the house. This is the things that they're put away.
They're locked up, you know, be open with your yeah, exactly, Yeah,
(22:54):
unless you want to go and do something with mom
or dad or I have kids and that they they
go and stuff with me, and and you just teach
common sense gun handling skills and you go through range
safety requirements and everything like that, like, hey, this is
the muzzle, this is when it's hot, this is like,
this is the chamber, this is the safety. This is
a trigger. Don't a trigger, Like, don't swing your muzzle
(23:17):
around like it's this is why you cleaning stuff. My
dad taught me stuff I learned in boy Scouts. It's
it's stuff I teach. Did you have some time in
the Scouts? Is that right? Yeah? Dude. I love the
Scouts When I was growing up and my dad was
involved with it with me and my brother, and then
I got to I was actually about to make Eagle
Scout and I was going in ninth grade, so I
(23:38):
was gonna be like the youngest equal scout in our troop.
I had like two more things to do. But then
I was going to the high school, and uh, it
wasn't cool anymore, and alls I want to go to
dances and chase girls and hang out with my buddies.
I don't want to go camping with a bunch of
dudes anymore. Now I love camping with a bunch of dudes.
But it was like it was like at the time,
I was like, no, I'm not doing that. I'm not
(24:00):
on no right and it's in the back me too, bro,
don don't worry about it. I got to be uh,
let's see. So I went from tenderfoot to the next one,
and then I was pretty much done at about fifteen
skateboarding and having a skate shop and all this kind
of stuff. I was like, what am I doing? You know,
it's like I gotta go sell skateboards tomorrow. And then
now my son, though, he's pushing towards a life, right,
(24:22):
he needs to get a life as a scout, so
he's working on that. You know, he's fourteen, and we
find you know that as long as you can keep
probably staying the course from fourteen right now to fifteen
and accomplishing that. They're probably gonna get it once they
hit fifteen sixteen, they're gonna be coming back into Scouts
because they have found out they get a rank when
they get that eagle, and they're coming back into the
(24:43):
troop and they're like, hey, I just need to catch up.
And one of my young men, he comes in, he's
a sixteen year old and he's not even a star yet,
and he's trying to catch up, you know, and it's like, bro,
you gotta have at least six months between life and
the eagle, you know, just even just to even get that,
you have to have all these service projects. And he's
so he's chasing it, right. It's just something that's always
(25:03):
just like, oh, stick with him here if you're karate. Yeah.
Every summer I was, we would go to like uh
they would have camps out on the East coast, like
big big boy Scout camps, like with no Camp Nobi Bosco,
bush Kill Falls. I would stay there for like a
week or two in the summer and just like working
all my different marrow badges and make fires from run
(25:24):
around in the woods and play Capture the Flag and
go to the lake and it was awesome. You know
that totally just goes right into what you went into
in the navy. You know, yeah, who needs to start
a fire? Who's cold? Let's shiver. Watch if we shiver.
We'll stay alive until you're tired, and then you can't
(25:44):
shiver anymore, but we'll try. You know here, you are right, simple,
simple things. It's funny when you see a thirteen year
old leading grown adults on a seven point five mile
hike into the backwoods, but they're like, this is that plant,
this is that plant, that's that animal, and this is
that rocket. Don't step there. I mean, if there's something
to be said about that. With all of this business
(26:05):
that you're going after with the d D are they
are they pretty heavily with your company, I would imagine.
I mean it's tough doing government contracts, right, so you
have to really walk the dog, and it takes it's
a really long process and cycle. So we started off
with like super small they're called s b i RS
Small Business Innovative Research Grants or something along those lines.
(26:27):
And we started off small, like really small ones where
it was like a proof of concept and like a
power point presentation, and then it went to like making
it a reality. So the Air Force sponsored US for
a couple of those grants to do stuff at different
air bases, submarine bases have worked with US armies picking
up and so now it's like we've done really well,
(26:50):
and particularly in the d D space or like within
the military basis, it's starting to spread to other things
within like just a huge umbrella of the d O D.
And so yeah, we see a world where we're going
to be on many more military bases with their security count. Yeah,
I could see that shooters across military bases like oh yeah,
like Pentecle, Hawaii. Yeah, come on, I mean really, you know, uh,
(27:15):
it's just yeah, that's crazy. You know, it's just such
a surreal conversation I'm having about right now with you
as this whole you know, active shooter at these places
and you know how we're trying to thwart it, and uh,
it's kind of bringing it home a little bit. I
just so don't mind me if i feel I'm getting somber.
I just feel a little like, you know, my son
was in an active drill at school, you know, and
(27:38):
they forgot to release them from it and let them
know it was a drill, and so one of the
little girls in the class was just like crying and
screaming because it was about twenty minutes had gone by
and they were like still sheltered in place and no
one had like released the kids from this drill that
they planned, and so they yeah, I mean that's kind
of like just trauma. Yeah. I tell people like it's so,
(28:00):
you know, my parents and stuff to grow up doing
nuclear fallout shelter drills because of the Cold War. Then
we grew up doing firelarm drills. Like the idea of
an active shooter drolls like not even close, not not
even in the realm of reality. Then you had senior
in high school and the combine happened, and it's just
(28:21):
like the world drastically changed from that, or at least
in the United States, and now we have our kids
doing these active shooter drolls all the time, like it's
like norm like a fire alarm drill, and you're like,
what the fuck. And that's why I see it. Yeah,
I never had that camera eventually, or this type of
technology being on every camera eventually, just that it's more
way more. It's like twelve or fifteen times more people
(28:41):
die from gun violence every year than they do fires.
But every building you walk into as a smoke detector, firelarm,
higher suppression system, and like it's just gonna be code
where you have to have this technology on to help
with the first responder so they co get medical aid
and aarro as fast as possible to stop the threat
and uh, get people, it's true. And get some decent
(29:02):
cameras for your security system. What pixel camera back, you
know what I mean? I want cameras that can at
least see the assailants stabbed me, okay, so they could
catch him right, Like who was that? You know, it's
like I may not make it, but at least you
got the footage. And when you see some of the
footage that comes over the news of like whatever robbery
(29:24):
or something like that kind of news, and you're like,
what is that camera from like five? What? What is that? Really?
I mean? Is that is that coda? Black and white film?
What are they what are they still using? There was
a then record that Yeah, it's true. It's like a
little bit goes into invest in your security system, right,
that's what you're there to help with too. I'm sure
(29:44):
you've got some quality systems that you can recommend if
somebody decides to, you know, hit you up. And I
just want to let anyone know, no one's no one's
paying me to talk about his business. This is something
that's very specific and very top of the conversation. And
and he's leading le even the charge with this artificial
intelligence and the conversation of facial recognition. We're all being
(30:04):
facially recognized, whether you think it's walking down the street
or when you go to look at your iPhone. Okay,
when you're like looking at your cell phone and it's
like facial recognition to open that thing, like every every Yeah,
we don't do any facial like. We just focused on
detecting guns, which is great. We're like, we're focusing on
this one specific type of object. We're not collecting any
personal identifiable information. We're not making lists of people to
(30:30):
watch or anything like that. We're just straight up like, hey,
if you want to know if there's a gun on
your campus or your your business or your base or
whatever whatever the environment is, like shopping mall, because you know,
hospital right here, there's a gun right here, and then
they enact that's right, they enact their their protocols to
respond to that a while the first responders are coming. Yeah,
(30:50):
it's like was that old school that's the old Chevy
car Star where you'd hit it. It's like you roll
and it automatically like sends the satellite signal like you're
an accident. We're sitting one right to you know, right
onto your spot now on star. Yeah, it's like I'm
not also not paid by them for plugging them. But
(31:11):
on start right, we all know what that was. You push.
It's like you must have a nine dollar a month membership,
like I have my Like, oh yeah, exactly, exactly. Well,
I mean it's just the way of the future. You know,
technology is gaining steam. You know, you've got you know,
super artificial intelligence sensors out there in the world since
(31:31):
for smart cities being constructed, and you know the gun recognition,
weapon recognition, you know, probably crossbow recognition, I mean recognition. Yeah.
I wish it was just crossbows. You know, if you
could imagine the right to bear arms with a musket
right now, active shooters would just be like a one
shot and then they'd pull on a blade because they
(31:53):
got time to reload. Right. Black Beard carried eight pistols
on him black Beard the Pirate, so he had pop
pop pop pop because he couldn't reload them, right. So
I'm just I'm just saying like, there is that opportunity
to you know, but I know that my community loves to,
you know, have their things, and that's fine. Have them.
Yeah right, just lock them up. Okay, that's what's up.
(32:17):
I don't care if you have a anything. I'm not
even gonna talk about no more. I'm gonna stop because
I got it too, That's all. But I will sit. Yeah,
it is, it is, and it gets crazy, and I
don't want to offend anybody because I do and I don't,
but I want to talk about what you're wearing on
your shirt and I feel like I know that logo.
It feels like to me, yeah, I'm actually Yeah. So
(32:39):
we went out and did their podcast, me and a
couple of the founders. Um, we went out to Utah
to your Jeff and uh yeah it was awesome. We
went on their show and I got I rocked your
T shirt all the time. I love it. It's actually
like it looks like the Ready Man logo. And then yeah, yeah, yeah,
we're actually well, I just had Jeff. I just had
(32:59):
him on the podcast. He was he just he was
my two shows before this, I had Jeff Kirkham from
I think that's probably who took you out. You know,
I forget his name that interviewed me. I have to
look at my phone. I'm so bad with names. My
brains like, so there's probably Jeff and Paul and uh
you probably back controller and then did stuff at the
(33:20):
Well he was green Beret and he had that room
at Black Rifle Studios where it was a really nice
podcast studio. Would you go into that? Yeah? It was sweet. Yeah,
that was that was what I used to use to
until COVID. That was my studio. Crazy that I can't
remember his name right now. I'll look it up in
a second. Now I'm in Whitefish, Montana actually today, Oh
(33:40):
are you going skiing? And my Fanci was with me
just snowboarding yesterday but it was snow and so we're
getting like fresh powder as we're going. I love that.
I love that. So my wife wants to go to
Big Sky. That's where you're at right now? Or what
Whitefish Mountain? White Fish, Whiteish north so like Missoul about
two hours north of and well, but like later tonight,
(34:01):
I'm going down to Cal's Belts or Black Rifle Coffee
place that they just built there with Andy Stump and
going on his Clear Hot podcast with some of my founders.
But we know Andy from he was like our instructor
and the Seal teams at one point and some of
the guys deployed with them that are gonna go be
on the show. So it'll be cool. That's awesome, bro.
And if you're ever here in Utah and you want
to go ride up at like any of the brightening
(34:23):
or something, you just let me know. Yeah, we'll go.
Yeah for your fiance. My wife will all ride, Yeah,
for sure. She's snowboards and there's got a great terrain park.
You know, lots of good I mean not so much.
It's not there's there's vertical there, but it's a lot
more like long runs for especially snowboards. Yes, we're going
on runs yesterday that we're over an hour long, which
is amazing, Like you don't get that on the East Coast,
(34:44):
Like you can go up to Vermont and get like
some decent you can get some decent ones from the
East Coast from Vermont, but like they were getting long
run yesterday and we're not going to rust off. We
haven't gone in a while, and we haven't gone it
all this season. But it was nice as gorgeous. I
love it. Yeah, I'm gonna whom that you're gonna you
wear a helmet. I usually do, yesterday I actually didn't.
(35:04):
I was just were just we weren't going down. I mean,
we're all greens and blues. Yesterday, we weren't doing anything.
I got. I got you, bro, I'm just gonna let
you know. I'm just gonna be Jimmy Cricket right now.
Just whisper in your ear, so let you know. So
let you know we're not getting younger. You know, I
take any more hits on my head. I've taken too many.
So I was cutting some trees yesterday, going through them,
(35:25):
you know, with my wife, and I was leading, and
I came up a little high and hit the back
of my edge against the tree and I was like, oh, ship,
you're a real tree, bro. That tree is like oh,
And it knocked me down a little bit. I just
off balance off my board and I was like, I
got a helmet on. I got a helmet on. That's
all I'm thinking. It's like I got a broken arm,
but I got a helmet on. I'm taking your advice
(35:47):
because you got it. It's not even about like you
hitting a tree or sometime. I mean that that's obviously
a part of it, but you all know that other
knuckleheads that are out there that are gonna come true
into you. Ye. No one's even like I'm always like
coming out or you know, right side, and there was
just like trying to like cut You've got fast, dude,
cruise and past you trying like fourteen year olds, I
(36:08):
have no fear and they're just like flying right yeah. Yeah,
and we'd like bells like bring ringing on the beach
on your bike's ring ring coming through ring. I'm cool
with that. A whistle you could take a wid I
haven't like I love taking my kids and stuff too,
but most good person like I I'm like going out
of speed where I have a beer in my hand
(36:29):
and a smoke and I'm like I'm flying totally nice.
Oh yeah, we'll get along just fine, dude. I have
no problems with that. And if again, if you're ever
out in Utah, just let me know. We'll go right
up to Brighton and uh let's go right up there
and ride. It was we got about a hundred and
right now, so we've already maxed out from our last
two seasons. This year. Actually lived in Tahoe. I dropped
(36:51):
out for a semester just before I even went into
the military, and I just I just bought a plane
ticket to Reno and I packed rag and within like
five days and left. I had no plan and I
got out at Reno and I was like, this is desert.
I was like, I was expecting Tahoe. I got a cab.
I only had like four dollars in my pocket. I
took a cab from Reno to Lake Tahoe and was like,
dropped me off at the first ski resort, and they
(37:12):
dropped me off at Sugar Bowl and I went in.
I was like, hey, do you have a job, and
they're like yeah, And I took a job like kitchen
sometimes I've worked out to be like a lift operator
and then smart though kitchen housing barracks warm thing with
a bunch of other employees, and it was like I
was there for four months. It was awesome. That's awesome.
What a great core memory right there, dude, that's awesome,
(37:35):
right just might might have just turned nineteen, and I
was like, I need something different in my life right now.
Going into the Navy, coming out West, you wind up
probably going through what Coronado and all of that for
your Seal Team train and then you got put into
a team that we don't really talk about. You got
Seal Team six. We hear about Seal Team one, Seal
(37:56):
Team three, but you're part of Seal Team four. It's
is that now a lot of us automatically maybe assume
everybody goes to Afghanistan. Everybody in the Seals just goes
to Afghanistan, boom, But was your team designated to a
certain area of operation like now we're so just they
restructured to Seal Team for before nine eleven used to
cover down on South America. Post nine eleven, they changed
(38:19):
it all up. I'm not sure how it is now,
but they changed it all up where it basically every
whenever a Seal Team was ready to deploy, they were
going wherever the action, like you're going Iraq, You're gonna
so yet, somewhere in Africa, whatever. So I spent all
my time in Afghanistan. Combat wise, my first deployment, we
had some platoons go to Iraq, but they were winding down,
wrapping it up, and in Afghanistan was really picking back up.
(38:41):
So I spent some time in like this small fob
with just our platoon by the border of Pakistan, and
it was it was wild that first employment. We're the
most attacked FOP while we were there in country, and
there's like they're only a handful of us staying in
this thing, and it was like every day, three times
a day, rockets, mortars, small arms fire and then but
(39:02):
your this against us to like really stop it. It
was like they didn't want us going out at night anymore.
Eventually our commander was like, these guys are gonna get
fucking smoked if they keep just we're just like sitting ducks.
And then finally took the gloves off and we got
after it, and we didn't get it to the last
three months of the deployment was like roughly eight months.
(39:24):
The last eight months or three months at the point
we didn't get attacked at all. It also helped it
was winner. But then we started moving into like village
stability operations, which was they would take a handful of
green Berets, seals or whoever and Stickleman. You would literally
live in the village with people and like sit around,
drink tea and eat goat and and then you would
(39:44):
like try to get them stand up for themselves and
in a nutshell yah, politically, you know a lot of
green Berets are you know, just instilled governments. It was exactly.
It wasn't a typical mission set for Seal at all.
Like it was definitely a green Berry mission. So like
before we actually enter our v s O site or
(40:05):
village ability site, me and two other guys from my opportunity,
we went out and stayed with green Brays for like
two weeks out there to see how they're running their
VSO and what was working, what wasn't, and then we
went and stood up ours. So it was a really
interesting deployment. It was very very active. It was everything
I asked for and was expecting from the Seal. So
kind of lucked out with that. And then the second
(40:27):
deployment went back to Afghanistan and I went in on.
I got attached to a NATO's Special Forces unit. I
got attached to the Polish Special Forces and what they
would Yeah, I worked with the GRAM and j W.
K and so they like one or two seals and
with them and then like we would help them intel
(40:48):
and at whatever they need helos, We'll go get helos
you need intel together a package and then like direct
on this for like what we wanted to get done.
So it was a big force multiplier for us. So
like instead of like the US having to put a
whole platoon of seals in one area, you can now
only have to put like two Americans, but used the
Native Special Forces. And I was like I lived with
(41:09):
those guys for months and they just like really took
me in and it was a great time. We're doing
all some missions. It was. It was a lot of
nighttime stuff blowing up like I d cachets and crazy.
It was. It was. It was fun everything you wanted,
you know, it's what you're weird, you know. It would
be me and like twelve Polish guys out on knop
like the Afghans, and I was the only one speaking English,
(41:31):
and I was like, I was like, well, ship hits
the fan. At least I was talking to the birds,
like I was talking to guys. Yeah, hey guys, so
I'm down here by myself and how are you doing up? There. Yeah,
I'm not really by myself, but mentally yeah, yeah, mentally.
And then there was always like that one or two
Polish guys. I would speak their broken English, but after
working with them for a while, like you just learned
how to communicate. I would pick up some of their language.
(41:52):
They're getting better with mine. And at the end of
the day, you're special operators, like you know what needs
to be done and we're body language and everything like that.
But it was an awesome experience working with much would
or rather have been with a seal platoon, but it
was still it was still good. And then there was
a couple of seals that rotated in and out with me.
I stayed there most of the time. And then like
so I wasn't always solo, but it was it was good.
(42:15):
Like they haven't forgot about you're new. Yeah, are you
real Polish? I forgot that. I slept through Polish class. Sorry,
Oh that's intense. You know. They were crazy that they
(42:35):
would make It was like jail house wine. They would
take like jerry cans that you would see that you
would put on like the back of a humby and
they were setting up. They would use fruit cocktail yeast
to make like basically do this stuff would rip fucking
paint off a car. But you got used to drinking
it after a while. But it probably took a couple
of years off my life. Oh yeah, you're good. It's okay.
(42:58):
You're like a cat. It's got to count all those lives,
those close ones. You're like, Okay, these guys like that. Well,
I I think that, you know, the Polish Gram are
just one of those special units that don't really get
a lot of like spotlight on them, and they like it.
I get it. And at the same time, you know,
actually I think there's a character and call of duty
(43:19):
though that is off the GRAM right now. And so
you know, they're all about that piano. They have like
a piano at their headquarters and it's a very significant thing.
It's very interesting about the ground. So when I went
in and I only worked with them for like two weeks,
they ended up doing a mission and we're basically advising him,
like stop doing it this way, but I'm not going
to go into crazy details about it, but we're like
(43:41):
sure me. And there was another seal that was with
me and he was really working the GRAM. I was
working at jw K, but we're like right next to
each other and then we work with each other and
the GRAM they ended up going out to do this
op and we were like advising against it because of
the Intel packet what we're seeing through Intel. And then
they got they got fucking ambushed. They lost like four
dudes or true commander took a fucking shot in the face.
(44:04):
It was bad, and so that they got the rest
of the poem. For the next couple of months like that,
they weren't operating, so we just focused specifically on j
w K. But it was like it turned into a
ship show. You always feel bad for guys when I
lose a brother, and it's that's uh. I felt bad
for them, But they just didn't operate for the next
couple of months while we're there, So we just worked
with the j w K, j w K publish Green
(44:25):
Brace that these guys were awesome too, I see, okay,
so the GRAB would be looked like a seal, right,
and then the jw K would be the Green Brace.
That's s style. That's cool. Yeah, that's cool. It's it's
it's a bummer that you know that ambush took place,
because I mean like, these guys are trained up, you know,
whether there's a packet telling them not to or not,
they still yeah, you know, you get you like you,
(44:46):
you know. And then there's someone out there. He says
that his dirt means more than the side of your dirt.
And now you guys are fighting over this dirt. Ye,
and you're both up trained obviously, huh has to be.
They just they thought they had good intel the this
target for someone, and they walked into a straight up
ambush and his compound they had like holes caught out
in the walls and like they walked right into the
(45:08):
dead zone and it was just like damn. The fact
that some of them got out alive is really impressive
because the four yard and they're just getting a ship
hammered out of them. Wow. Yeah you were there to advise. Yeah,
I know, bro, sorry about that to you, and I'm
just letting you know, okay, it's part of the job. Yeah,
(45:32):
I understood, understood, understood. Well that's crazy. I'm not gonna
try to end it on that, but thanks for being
who you are. Thanks for going after your dreams. Thanks
for reading a book in seventh grade that steered you
into you know, choosing to fight for the flag that
I get to sleep under at night. Thank you for
(45:53):
you know, being an outdoorsman and a father and and
coming home to us safely, and so thank you too
for me to you for all those things. So thank you, yeah, man, yeah,
thank you, and thank you for all you do getting
the word out and all these great stories and people
you have on your show. And I appreciate it. Rat
it's awesome than beer. You're very welcome. It's that beards
(46:14):
perfect you. I'll tell you when it gets ice beards
from snowboard and bris it was like the big chunks
in there. And yes, I love that. I know my
wife's all got herself bundled up like a ninja, and
I'm like, just grow your beard, just let it go,
let it go. Well, look, I know you've got other
(46:35):
podcasts to do, and you've got a busy schedule and
you're a popular dude. So thank you so much. We'll
make sure that deero Eyes dot com gets mentioned in
our typed out soft reap dot com post. And I
just want to thank you so much for serving our country,
being a really chill dude to take the time to
talk with me this morning on your vacation and thanks
(46:55):
so much for joining me. Do you have anything you
want to say? No? Yeah, just check out zero dot
com and thanks wrong. You know, let's go make a difference.
Let's go make a difference. All right, Well this is
rad I'll be happy, Mike saying peace you them listening
to self red Radio. M
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